Buying used HP Win 10 laptop, anything I should be checking?

[alphason]

Thinking of buying a used HP Windows 10 laptop, its only 5 months old, so I think I can check the remainder of the 2yr warranty at https://support.hp.com/th-th/checkwarranty with the serial number.

 

Anything obvious I should be checking for? I currently use Win 10 Pro which was a free upgrade, I guess this will be the Home edition, anything major I will miss or can I upgrade to Pro using the same key as old one? What about the windows passwords etc.

 

My wifi router is 802.11n this new laptop is 802.11ac assume it will still work ok?

 

Just trying to make sure there is nothing I should be checking before I buy? Thanks

Edited October 20, 2017 by alphason

[gandalf12]

Play a game on it like soliter. It is a quick way to see how fast (or slow) it is. If it is slow could be the hard disk on the way out but that can be replaced easily enough. Make a back up of the OS if you buy it as replacing the hard disk will require it to install the software.

Generally look at the overall condition and especially the screen if it has cracks or the color is not consistent across the screen. Otherwise should be ok. 

[hobobo]

9 minutes ago, gandalf12 said:

Play a game on it like soliter. It is a quick way to see how fast (or slow) it is. If it is slow could be the hard disk on the way out but that can be replaced easily enough. Make a back up of the OS if you buy it as replacing the hard disk will require it to install the software.

Generally look at the overall condition and especially the screen if it has cracks or the color is not consistent across the screen. Otherwise should be ok. 

I'd also change the oil and top up the battery! 555

[gandalf12]

9 minutes ago, hobobo said:

I'd also change the oil and top up the battery! 555

Sounds good. Dont forget the windscreen wipers while you are at it

[yimlitnoy]

In Control panel, simply check Device manager and if none are red, then your hardware is OK.

[JamJar]

Rudimentary things like full model number, in order to check the specification and price might be a good place to begin.

[jgarbo]

1 hour ago, JamJar said:

Rudimentary things like full model number, in order to check the specification and price might be a good place to begin.

Windows diagnostics are crap. There should be an HP Diagnostics sector on the HD. Hit F2 (?) on start up, go through the menu and run diagnostic tools. That will check RAM, HD, and motherboard. 

[scottiejohn]

1 hour ago, yimlitnoy said:

In Control panel, simply check Device manager and if none are red, then your hardware is OK.

IDM really only tells you that your drivers etc; are working/installed OK.  Nothing to do with the health of the system overall

[scottiejohn]

 

2 minutes ago, jgarbo said:

Right. Windows is garbage. End of story. Use Linux. It will even make your morning coffee.

 

7 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

IDM really only tells you that your drivers etc; are working/installed OK.  Nothing to do with the health of the system overall

jgarbo;  Please do not quote me out of context.  You appear to wish to carry out a 'Windows bashing exercise".  Do that somewhere else please. 

 

I was NOT making any derogatory comment about the Windows OS!

The OP is asking for advice on the purchase of a specific device. 

 

I was only correcting what I believe was wrong advice regarding the use of DM and the info it give in a previous post. 

 

Windows has many Diagnostic/info systems available and I believe DM was the wrong one in this instance.

[scottiejohn]

6 hours ago, alphason said:

I guess this will be the Home edition, anything major I will miss or can I upgrade to Pro using the same key as old one? What about the windows passwords etc.

Have you established what version it is? There are many ways but the easiest is to go to settings/update-security.  There it will tell you what version of Win10 it is and how/if it is activated. If it appears to be properly activated via the OEM installation I would stick with it even if it is not PRO unless you really need PRO. 

 

PS; As you are already well used to the WIN OS I would suggest you just ignore the anti Window's brigade in your present circumstances.

 

If you want any more direct advice feel free to PM me.

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by scottiejohn
PS; added

[alphason]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

 

So long as the basics check out, and its still covered by the warranty I think will be OK.

[Jai Dee]

Off-topic comments (and replies) about Linux have been removed from this thread.

 

They are neither useful nor welcome in a Windows topic.

[John Richards]

HP support if it does go pear shaped is the worst in the business ! If HP hardware goes bang you bin it and vow never again !

[elgenon]

HP. Pew! El Stinko. If HP were the last computer on earth I wouldn't kiss it. I guess you get my point.

[thedemon]

You can check the health of the LI battery by opening a command prompt window and entering;

 

powercfg /batteryreport

 

That will generate a report and place it in C:\Users\XXX (where XXX is your user name).

[LeoTex]

What little I know about laptops (computers).

 

If I turned it on and the thing powered up, I'm good to go.

 

LeoTex

[alphason]

Went with the HP, felt happy as it was a good buy & I'm used to windows. Previously had 2 Acers which always look value when buying new, the latest is just 4 yrs old which is ok but the screen and keyboard starting giving problems after it was a little over a year old.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I checked the remainder of the warranty with HP, physical check for scratches or tampering, checked a simple game, internet browsing, played a video. Ran the HP diagnosic checks (F2) as suggested, Windows was activated and updated.

 

So need to move my stuff from the old to new, any tips to make this easier?

 

My old latop is such a mess, there are files everywhere, is there an app or something that could run and sort them all all and put them into folders, remove duplicates? This time I want to start on the new laptop making places/folders to try to keep everthing more organsied this time.

 

Thanks

[SnakeBite]

If you ever have over heating problems with a HP machine, you can solve it by using some 1/2 inch car v belt and use double sided tape and velcro the pieces of v belt to the bottom of your machine. Gave more room for the air to escape from the fans.

[scottiejohn]

4 hours ago, alphason said:

remove duplicates

Just Google "duplicate file" and you will find lots of Progs/help.  Don't pay - even the free version of CCleaner has a duplicate file finder function (basic).  TV does not allow us (I believe) to promote or provide info/links to specific product Sites.

WRT folder management that is best done manually once you have got rid of all your duplicates.

 

PS; How large are the files you will be transferring, there are many options.

 

Edited October 23, 2017 by scottiejohn
minor edit

[alphason]

I have CCleaner already can give that a try. Would be good if something automatically sorted all the video,text,photos etc into folders.

 

It's a mixture of files, video,audio,torrents,text,photos,document scans etc. Most programs I use are free so can just download again. I have a WD book live NAS, although its 2TB the HDD is on the way out and most of the drive not accessable anymore, (I'd lost a lot of files mostly photos, audio video I lost is less important). Most mportant documents were in my dropbox.

 

Thanks.

[scottiejohn]

1 hour ago, alphason said:

although its 2TB the HDD is on the way out and most of the drive not accessable anymore

In view of that statement I would not do anything (especially installing ANY programmes on that old disk) to that dying old disk until you have copied anything that is recoverable to your new computer or external HDD.

 

Have you thought of investing in an external HDD for recovery purposes.  (if not the same problem will rear it's ugly head again in in a few years time)

Get one and get everything you can off the old drive onto the external and then copy to the new computer, then duplicate check/file rearrange then re back up to your new recovery drive. 

[jenny2017]

Put Hard Drive Sentinel on and see how many hours the thing has been running.

 

It will also tell you how many start ups were done. And if the drive's healthy, Let the machine run for a while and switch quite a few programs on. If it's getting too hot, you'll need a thorough clean up

 

      Check if it's got the usual memory and not a card taken out, easy to find out. 

[alphason]

Just another thing I wanted to check.

 

I checked that Windows 10 Home was activated and was updated, which it was, it says windows is activated using your oranisations activation service.

 

But if I check from command prompt using slmgr /xpr it says volume activation will expire 8/12/2017

 

Never seen this before, should I be doing something about it before I install to much or is it not an issue. (Win 10 keys are cheaply available form ebay).

Edited October 24, 2017 by alphason

[alphason]

Started new topic for this as its not directly reated to my first post